Humanitarian Mine Action

What it is

• Humanitarian mine action is a comprehensive and practical response to the problem of mines and unexploded ordnance- (UXO).
• It is geared to address the needs of mine-affected communities by focussing first on removing mines and UXOs where they most endanger lives and deny access to productive land and vital infrastructure. Places such as a field, the path to a water source or a village school will be top of a humanitarian deminers to-do list.
• In contrast to military mine clearance, humanitarian mine action aims to remove all explosive objects from an area with a very high rate of certainty. After clearance, it is important that communities will feel free to return without concerns about remaining weapons. Another feature of humanitarian mine action is that it seeks to build local capacity in affected countries, as part of a development strategy.
• Humanitarian mine action includes a range of activities aimed at reducing or completely eliminating the threat and impact of landmines and UXO upon civilians and their livelihoods. It usually encompasses three types of activities: minefield survey and marking, mine clearance or demining, and mine risk education. It also goes hand-in-hand with work on stigmatising use and promoting the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty.
• To increase efficiency and effectiveness, an increasingly important aspect of mine action is priority setting and planning.
• Although humanitarian mine action is a time-consuming, labour-intensive and dangerous, the benefits are long-term and far-reaching. Land is put back into use and refugees are free to return home, while peace, security and economic recovery are boosted.
• The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty provides for the destruction of antipersonnel mines in mined areas and sets a deadline for this: ten years after the country has become a State Party to the agreement. The majority of member states joined the treaty in 1997 and their deadline is 2009.

How it works

• Surveys: information from minefield records, victim records and interviews with communities and former soldiers builds a picture of the mine problem and sets priorities. Landmine impact surveys gather information from local citizens about the socio-economic effects of mines.Technical surveys help to define a minefield and provide detailed maps for operators.
• Marking: the borders of a minefield are indicated by painted stones, signs or other methods. These markers warn people not to enter the area and show deminers where to start working.
• Mine clearance: deminers use a toolbox of methods to detect and remove mines. Typically this includes: manual clearance, mine detection dogs and mechanical clearance. Manual clearance involves teams of deminers using prodders and metal detectors. Mine detection dogs find mines using their keen sense of smell. Mechanical clearance is done with armoured equipment such as excavators, flails and vegetation cutters.
• Mine risk education: also called mine awareness, this aims to reduce the risk of injury from mines and UXO by raising awareness and promoting behavioural change. It included public information dissemination, education and training and community mine action liaison.
• Several ICBL members are involved in mine action activities. They are members of our Working Group on Mine Action and the sub-Working Group on Mine Risk Education.

Some myths

• The number of mines laid determines their impact on a community: in fact the number of mines is almost irrelevant because even the suspicion that a landmine is presence can lay a whole area to waste. In any case, nobody knows exactly how many mines pollute an area until clearance has taken place!
• Technology will save the day: despite many technological advancements, manual mine clearance techniques remains the most effective because of cost and reliability. There remains no 'silver bullet' to solve mine clearance challenges in places as diverse as Cambodian rice paddies and Afghan roads.
• A minefield looks a bit like a football pitch: more often than not a minefield is neither flat and covered in short grass. On the contrary, mines are found and cleared from a vast range of difficult terrains: derelict buildings, forests, rocky hills, irrigation canals.